LOCALadk Magazine

LOCALadk 14 The Wakely Dam Ultra By Blaine Doyle with photos provided by Kimberlee Gardner In every ultra race I have ever run, I inevitably hit a point where I ask myself a simple question: "why? " The question usually pops into my head a few hours in, when my legs don't want to keep moving, my stom- ach is cramping, my brain is exhausted, and I wonder why I even left my bed that morning. However, when I finally cross that finish line, the answer is always there waiting for me. I look back on the last few hours and the lows never outweigh the highs. Everyone has a different "why? ", and I have gotten to find my different "why's" at the Wakely Dam Ultra. Coming in at around 55 km (34.18 miles), The Wake- ly Dam Ultra is the Adirondacks longest standing ul- tra marathon race and is incredibly unique. You start at Wakely Dam and head straight south on the North- ville Lake Placid Trail until you come out of the woods at the Piseco Airport. There are no aid stations, no spectators, no support — just you, what you carry with you, and the woods. Integral to the race are the Gardners who took on organizing the race, and now have a yearly family reunion centered around hosting the race. There's a registra- tion happy hour, a pre race pasta dinner, and a post race cook out at Piseco Airport where everyone in the community can meet together and revel in the shared experience of a race well done. And, the regulars who have raced all 25 years, who show off their 20 year old t-shirts, and plan out training runs together to prepare themselves for their yearly tradition. I only ran this race twice, which is measly compared to those who are running it for the 25th time this year on July 18, its 25th anniversary. However, the two times that I ran it, I experienced a different answer to my "why? " each time. My first Wakely Dam Ultra experience was in 2023, my first summer in the Adirondacks. I came to Wakely during a formative time in my life, right off the back of a tumultuous senior year at college. In my fall semester, just as I was falling out of love with my two majors — economics and political science — I was falling in love with longer distance running. I was training for my first ever 50k with some great friends and putting up the most mileage of my life. During that training, I found solace in the simplicity of running during the chaos of feeling forced to decide what I had to do for the rest of my life. My runs were times each day where I could turn my brain off, and only focus on one single-minded goal: going forward. When I first heard of the Wakely Dam Ultra, it became a big goal of mine. I had some wonderful and personal history with the forest that it traversed. My first ever Adirondack backpacking trip passed through the West Canada Wilderness on a section of the NPT that the course traverses. When I eventually be- came a guide myself, I led many trips back through those same woods. Their beauty, remote and se- rene, took hold of me and I couldn't wait to experience them again, this time while running. I was on my computer at 8 AM on the February morning when registra- tion opened up. There are only a handful of spots available for the race, and I just so hap- pened to be the first one registered for the 2023 edi- tion. When the race day finally came, I left from the start and didn't see another racer for the rest of the 34 miles. It was just me and the trail in front of me; a perfect canvas to experience the simplicity that so enthralled me during college. My worldview shrank for the next delicious hours into a single-minded focus: go forward. I experienced the spectrum of emotions one does in an ultra. The early few miles felt good and going for- ward felt easy and natural; the middle few miles where the terrain becomes rugged, going forward felt like a command rather than an invitation; and the last third where the fatigue caught up to me and going forward felt like a mantra that was the only thing keeping me on my feet. While I got to the finish line utterly exhausted, there was also a sense of freshness within me from the privi- No aid stations, no spectators, and no support. Just you, and 55 km of trail in the Adirondacks' longest standing ultra marathon.

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